Hedonism

The word ‘hedonism’ comes from the ancient Greek for
‘pleasure’. Psychological or motivational hedonism claims
that only pleasure or pain motivates us. Ethical or evaluative hedonism
claims that only pleasure has worth or value and only pain or
displeasure has disvalue or the opposite of worth. Jeremy Bentham
asserted both psychological and ethical hedonism with the first two
sentences of his book An Introduction to the Principles of Morals
and Legislation: “Nature has placed mankind under the
governance of two sovereign masters, pain, and
pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to
do, as well as to determine what we shall do”. Debate about
hedonism was a feature too of many centuries before Bentham, and this
has also continued after him. Other key contributors to debate over
hedonism include Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Aquinas, Butler, Hume,
Mill, Nietzsche, Brentano, Sidgwick, Moore, Ross, Broad, Ryle and
Chisholm.

In general, pleasure is understood broadly below, as including or as
included in all pleasant feeling or experience: contentment, delight,
ecstasy, elation, enjoyment, euphoria, exhilaration, exultation,
gladness, gratification, gratitude, joy, liking, love, relief,
satisfaction, Schadenfreude, tranquility, and so on. Pain or displeasure
too is understood broadly below, as including or as included in all
unpleasant experience or feeling: ache, agitation, agony, angst,
anguish, annoyance, anxiety, apprehensiveness, boredom, chagrin,
dejection, depression, desolation, despair, desperation, despondency,
discomfort, discombobulation, discontentment, disgruntlement, disgust,
dislike, dismay, disorientation, dissatisfaction, distress, dread,
enmity, ennui, fear, gloominess, grief, guilt, hatred, horror, hurting,
irritation, loathing, melancholia, nausea, queasiness, remorse,
resentment, sadness, shame, sorrow, suffering, sullenness, throb,
terror, unease, vexation, and so on. ‘Pain or displeasure’
is usually stated below just as ‘pain’ or just as
‘displeasure’. Further economy is sometimes secured by
stating, just about pleasure or just about displeasure, points that do
or might apply to both. Whether such pleasure-displeasure parallels
actually hold is a significant further issue, touched upon only briefly
in the present entry.

What sort of entity is pleasure or pain? Candidates include: state,
state of affairs, thing, event and property. Second, is it a
first-order entity or a higher-order entity? For example, is your pain
your toothache, its naggingness, or both? When you enjoy the cityscape
below your viewpoint, is your pleasure your view, your enjoyment of it,
the pleasurableness of your enjoyment of it, or all three? And so on.
Third, does pleasure essentially have a ‘feel’ or
phenomenology, a ‘something it is like’ (Nagel 1974).
Fourth, does it essentially have directedness or
‘aboutness’ or intentionality? These issues about the
nature of pleasure and displeasure are discussed below (see also the
entry for
pleasure)
as they bear on the
nature and merits of various forms of hedonism.

Bentham's claim that pain and pleasure determine what we do
makes him a psychological hedonist, and more specifically a hedonist
about the determination of action. This section focuses instead on the
more modest claim that only pleasure or displeasure motivates us. This
form of psychological hedonism helpfully allows that some hedonic
motivations of ours fail to determine our action, and that some of our
hedonically determined actions fail actually to get us pleasure.
Weakness of agency can see our motivation fail to generate our action
(see
weakness of will);
and the related
‘paradox of hedonism’ is the plausible claim that some of
our hedonically motivated or determined action actually secures less
pleasure than we would otherwise have got (e.g., Sidgwick: 48f).

Why believe even the relatively modest motivational form of
psychological hedonism? One argument infers it from the motivational
egoist claim that each of us is always motivated to maximize what we
take to be our own good, plus the claim that we each accept that our
good is our maximal or sufficient balance of pleasure over displeasure.
But motivational egoism is at best controversial (see entry on
egoism).
Also controversial is the psychological
thesis that each of us accepts hedonism about our own good. For one
thing, it ungenerously implies that those who think they reject
hedonism about their own good do not even know their own minds on this
matter.

Another argument for motivational hedonism is this: sometimes we are
motivated by pleasure, every case can be accounted for in this
way, the more unified the account the better, and hedonism is the most
unified account. But at most, this argument shows only that in the
unification respect hedonism is the best account of our motivation.
Even if that is so, unification is not the only feature that it is
desirable for theories of motivation to have, and the argument is
silent on how motivational hedonism scores on any other desirable
feature. The argument consequently fails to establish the overall
plausibility of motivational hedonism, let alone the thesis that it is
the most plausible theory of motivation. In addition, parallel
arguments arguably ‘show’ that we are sometimes motivated
to improve ourselves, to survive, to attend to our near-and-dear, to
live with integrity, and so forth; that every case can be narrated in
such terms; and thus that all these rival views are just as unified as
is motivational hedonism.

A third argument for motivational hedonism claims that it is a truth
of everyday meaning that the words ‘is motivated’ just mean
some such thing as ‘aims for the greatest balance of pleasure
over pain’. The core trouble here is that motivational hedonism
is not a truth of everyday meaning. Even if it were such a truth, the
main issue of substance would remain. Rivals would simply re-state the
ongoing central issue using neighbouring concepts; for example:
‘however it might be with the narrower concept
“motive”, the claim that we are always moved by
pleasure is false’. Nor would it help motivational hedonists to
make a Humpty Dumpty move here (see Carroll: ch. 6): ‘when
I use the words “is motivated”, said Humpty
Dumpty, they mean just what I choose them to mean, namely
“is aimed at pleasure”’. Such stipulation does not
identify any good reason for anyone to join Humpty Dumpty in his
eccentric word usage.

Even if all of the above arguments for motivational hedonism fail,
other arguments for it could be made. Even if every argument for
motivational hedonism fails, failure of a positive is not success of a
negative. What then of the arguments against this relatively modest
form of psychological hedonism?

Some challenges to motivational hedonism are demands for its thesis
to be made more determinate. First, is it about every motivation; or is
it only about the motives of ours that predominate, with exceptions
when little pleasure or displeasure is at stake and/or when much else
is at stake (c.f. Kavka: 64–80 on ‘predominant egoism’)?
The present entry takes motivational hedonism to be the first of these
views. Second, is it about all motivational entities, including all
desires, wants, preferences, inclinations, intentions, decisions, and
choices; or is it instead a claim about only an incomplete subset of
these? The present entry treats it as a claim just about desires (see
the entries on
desire
and
intention).
Third and relatedly, is it a pair of
claims, one about desires for pleasure and the other about aversions to
displeasure; or is it instead a single claim about overall or net
desires for a sufficient or maximal net pleasure-displeasure balance?
The present entry generally treats it as the latter. Fourth, is it a
claim about every desire whatever, or just a claim about every human
desire? The present entry treats it as the latter, though it is a good
question why human desirers might be thought to be specially
pleasure-oriented. Fifth, is it the egoistic claim that one desires
only one's own pleasure, or the egocentric claim that one desires
only the pleasure of oneself and one's near-and-dear, or is it
instead a non-egoistic claim? When it makes a difference, the present
entry takes motivational hedonism to be the first of these claims.
Sixth, is it the production-based claim that we are motivated to cause
pleasure, or does it allow, for example, that being moved to laugh
might be being motivated to express rather than to produce pleasure?
The present entry considers production-based claims, plus the distinct
idea that our desire only ever has pleasure as its object.

From critical demands for more determinacy, turn now to the
following articulated ‘incredulous stare’ (after Lewis: 86)
challenge to motivational hedonism. We direct our richly various mental
lives – our beliefs, musings, intentions, enthusiasms, hopes,
aspirations, and so on and on – at massively plural and diverse
items in ourselves, in others, in myriad aspects of the non-human
world, and in the infinities of contingent future possibility. In
keeping with this overall psychological picture, our motivations too
have objects that are massively plural and diverse. In the light of
such facts, motivational hedonism merits an incredulous stare: why
would anyone believe even for a minute that all human motivation takes
as its object just one sort of item? On this point, some go beyond
incredulity to contempt. Thus Nietzsche: “Man does not strive for
pleasure; only the Englishman does” (Nietzsche: ‘Maxims and
Arrows’ #12). Perhaps the most promising motivational hedonist
response, about all humans including Englishmen, is to say that all our
basic motives are directed at pleasure and all our non-basic motives
are pleasure-centred too, but less directly so. This move is examined
further below in discussion of Butler and Hume.

Some other criticisms of motivational hedonism can be quickly
rebutted. One such criticism is that we are often motivated by things
that in fact give us neither pleasure nor the best available
pleasure-displeasure balance, such as when we step under a shower that
we take to be suitably warm but find instead to be scalding hot.
Another is that the idea of maximal pleasure, or of the best feasible
pleasure-displeasure balance, assumes a common measure that cannot be
had. A third criticism is that not every pleasure in prospect motivates
us. Hedonists can reply: first, that one is always and only motivated
by what one thinks to be one's maximal or sufficient pleasure or
pleasure-displeasure balance; second, that this is possible even if the
idea of pleasure maximization in such settings does not ultimately make
sense; and third, that hedonism does not imply that one is motivated by
every pleasure prospect.

Motivational hedonism would be seriously undermined by any case of
an individual who is motivated otherwise than by pleasure or
displeasure. Here are some standard candidates that seem true to
experience: the parent who seeks to give his child good early years and
a good start in life for that child's sake, the walker who kicks
a small stone ‘just for the hell of it’, the soldier who
opts for a painful death for himself to save his comrades, and the
dying person who fights to keep a grip on life despite fully grasping
that much pain and little or no pleasure now remains to her.

The standard style of hedonist response to attempted counterexamples
is to offer rival motivational stories: the soldier was really
motivated only by an underlying belief that her dying would secure her
a joyful afterlife or at least a half-second's sweet pleasure of
hero's self-sacrifice; the parent was actually motivated only by
his own pleasurable intention to give the child a good start or by his
expectation that his now having this intention will somehow cause him
to have pleasure later; the dying non-believer in any afterlife in fact
hangs on only because she really believes that in her life there is
still pleasure for her; and so on.

The capability of hedonists to tell hedonic stories as to our
motives does not in itself generate any reason to think such narratives
true. To escape refutation by counterexample, motivational hedonists
need to tell the tale of every relevant motive in hedonic terms that
are not merely imaginative but are also in every case more plausible
than the anti-hedonist lessons that our experience seems repeatedly to
teach some of us about many of our motives.

As noted above, some statements of motivational hedonism are
indeterminate. Consider now the more precise thesis that each of
one's desires or passions or appetites has one's own
pleasure and only this as its object, as that at which alone it is
aimed or is directed or is about. This thesis was a target of Bishop
Joseph Butler in his 1729 work Fifteen Sermons Preached at the
Rolls Chapel. Butler noted in his Preface that there are:
“such passions in mankind as desire of esteem, or of being
beloved, or of knowledge”. All of these have objects other than
pleasure. Drawing on Butler's critique, David Hume added further
examples: that people have bodily appetites such as hunger and thirst;
that mental passions drive them to attain such things as fame, power,
and vengeance; and that many of us also: “feel a desire of
another's happiness and good” (Hume: Appendix 2, 12–13).
All these appetites have objects other than just one's own
pleasure or displeasure. By appeal to such cases Butler and Hume
arguably refuted the strong motivational hedonist thesis that
one's every desire has one's own pleasure and that alone as
its object.

In pulling things together downstream from the Butler-Hume critique,
hedonist responses might first distinguish basic from non-basic
desires. A desire is basic if one has it independently of any thought
one has about what else this will or might cause or bring about. A
desire is non-basic if one's having it does depend on one's
having such further thought. Equipped with this distinction,
motivational hedonists can claim that one's every basic desire
has one's own pleasure as its object, and one's every
non-basic desire depends on one's thinking this will or might
bring one pleasure. Thus propelled, hedonists can swim back against the
broader Butler-Hume stream by claiming, of everyone in every case, that
has only non-basic desire for esteem or knowledge or to be beloved, and
this only because one thinks it will or might give one pleasure; and
likewise with one's appetite for food or drink, one's
mental passion for fame or power or vengeance, and one's desire
for the happiness or good of any other.

Despite the implicature of the cliché, it is possible to sink
even as one swims. Still, the foregoing does supply hedonists with some
potential buoyancy aids. They can claim that one's every basic
desire is directed at one's own pleasure, and one's every
non-basic desire, directed at something other than pleasure, is had
only because one thinks this will or might bring one pleasure. The wide
range of ways in which one's desire for non-pleasure could bring
one pleasure include: by this desire's itself being an instance
of pleasure (e.g., by appeal to a desire-pleasure identity thesis; see
Heathwood), by the desire's having the property of
pleasurableness (e.g., deploying the thought that pleasure is a
higher-order property of every desire), by the desire's causing
one pleasure independently of whether its object obtains (e.g., a
fan's desire to be a vampire or a hobbit might cause him pleasure
even though this desire of his is never fulfilled); or by the
desire's causing its object to obtain, where this object is an
instance of one's pleasure, or has pleasure as one of its
properties, or causes one pleasure. Well and good. But again, it is one
thing to tell such motivational hedonist stories and it is another
thing to identify any reason to think the stories true.

A wider issue about motivational hedonism is this: is it a
contingent claim about an aspect of our psychology that could have been
otherwise; or does it posit a law of our psychological nature; or is it
a necessary truth about all metaphysically or conceptually or logically
possible motivations? The answers to such questions also bear on the
sorts of evidence and argument we need if we are fully to appraise
motivational hedonism. If it is an empirical psychological thesis, as
it seems to be, then it is reasonable to expect application of the
methods and evidence of empirical psychology, social inquiry, and
perhaps also biological science, to do the main work of appraising it.
It is also reasonable to expect that most of this work is to be done by
specialist scientists and social scientists through their systematic
conduct of meta-analyses of large numbers of empirical studies.
Philosophical work will continue to be needed too, to weed out
incoherent ideas, to separate out the numerous distinct motivational
hedonist theses; and to scrutinize whether, and if so with what
significance, various empirical findings actually do bear on these
various hedonist theses. For instance, even the feasibility of a
research design that is capable of empirically separating out our basic
from our non-basic motives would be a serious challenge. Philosophical
work can also identify the various features that it is desirable for
theories of motivation to have and to be appraised against.
Unification, determinacy, and confirmation by cases are treated above
as desirable. Other desirable features might include consistency and
maximal scope. Philosophers and others can systematically appraise
theories of motivation in such terms, including through pairwise
comparative assessments of rival theories in terms of those desirable
features.

This section has critically reviewed motivational hedonism and has
found weaknesses in some central arguments for the view, together with
some significant problems of determinacy and disconfirmation. It has
also found that there are arguments against motivational hedonism that
have some force. Ongoing inquiry is continuing to assess whether such
troubles for motivational hedonism can be overcome, and whether any of
its rivals fare any better overall than it does.

At its simplest, ethical hedonism is the claim that all and only
pleasure has positive importance and all and only pain or displeasure
has negative importance. This importance is to be understood
non-instrumentally, that is, independently of the importance of
anything that pleasure or displeasure might cause or prevent. From
ethical hedonism, it follows that if our relationships, achievements,
knowledge, character states, and so on, have any non-instrumental
importance, this is just a matter of any pleasure or displeasure that
is in their natures. Otherwise, they have only instrumental importance
through the pleasure they cause or displeasure they diminish. At least
from the simple forms of ethical hedonism, it also follows that
pleasure is good whenever it is had, even in matters that are
themselves worthless or worse. Some hedonists are willing to bite such
bullets; others develop more complex forms of ethical hedonism that
seek to soften the bullets or even to dissolve them.

Some things have both instrumental and non-instrumental importance,
and in such cases their overall importance is a function of both. These
two matters can also pull in opposite directions. Your pain of being
once bitten has non-instrumental negative importance, for example, but
it might also have instrumental positive importance through the further
pain you avoid by its making you twice shy. Instrumental importance is
a contingent matter and it varies widely from case to case. This is why
the non-instrumental claims of pleasure and displeasure are the present
focus.

Ethical hedonism can be universalist, me-and-my-near-and-dear
egocentric, or egoistically focused just on one's own pleasure.
It can also be a claim about value, morality, well-being, rationality,
reasons or aesthetics. It can be a claim about grounds for action,
belief, motivation or feeling; or a claim about ought, obligation, good
and bad, or right and wrong. And these are not the only the
possibilities. The discussion below aims for both determinacy of
formulation and generality across the different forms of ethical
hedonism, albeit that these two aims are in some tension with one
another. For economy of expression, discussion proceeds below in terms
of hedonism about value. At its simplest, this is the thesis that
anything has non-instrumental value if and only if it is an instance of
pleasure, and has non-instrumental disvalue if and only if it is an
instance of pain or displeasure.

Aristotle (1095a15–22) claimed that we all agree that the good is
eudaimonia but there is disagreement among us about what
eudaimonia is. Similarly, ethical hedonists agree with one
another that the good is pleasure, but there is some disagreement among
them, and among non-hedonists too, about what pleasure is. Accounts of
pleasure are canvassed below, and issues with them are briefly
reviewed, especially regarding the various ways in which they bear on
the prospects for ethical hedonism.

Phenomenalism about pleasure is the thesis that pleasure is a mental
state or property that is or that has a certain something that is
‘what it is like’ for its subject; a certain feel, feeling,
felt character, tone or phenomenology. On the face of it, the classic
utilitarians Jeremy Bentham and J.S. Mill were phenomenalists about
pleasure. With various complexities and qualifications, so too are some
more recent writers (e.g., Moore: 64, Broad: 229–33, Schlick: ch. 2,
Sprigge: ch. 5, Tännsjö: 84–84, Crisp 2006: 103–109, Bradley,
Labukt).

Intentionalism about pleasure is the thesis that pleasure is an
intentional state or property and thus has ‘directedness’.
Intentional or representational states or properties are many and
diverse, but they share a subject-mode-content structure (Crane: ch.
1). You or I or the next person might be the subject, belief or
intention or desire or perception or emotion or pleasure might be the
intentional mode, and the content of this intentional state or property
includes its object or that which it is about. If I delight in the day,
for example, I am the subject of this mental state or property that has
delight as its intentional mode and the day as its intentional object.
My delight in the day is thus an instance of intentional pleasure.
Intentionalism implies that pleasure is an intentional state or a
property in the pleasure mode that has some object. Brentano
(1874/1973) was an intentionalist about pleasure, and so too are some
more recent philosophers (e.g., Chisholm, Crane, Feldman 2004).

Intentionalist accounts of pleasure are less well known than
phenomenalist accounts, so they merit brief elaboration on several
points. First, to say that pleasure is an intentional state or property
is not to make any claim about deliberateness, choice or intention.
Intentionalism is the thesis that pleasure has
‘about-ness’, it not a thesis about pleasure's
relation to the will. Second, if pleasure is an intentional state or
property then it has an object, but it does not follow that all
pleasures are propositional attitudes, with states of affairs or
propositions as their objects. On one standard account, any
psychological verb that can be inserted into the φ place in the
schema ‘S φs that p’ is an attitude (e.g.,
‘thinks’, ‘hopes’, ‘wishes’,
‘prefers’, ‘delights’, ‘enjoys’) to
a proposition p. Some accept the universal thesis that all intentional
states are propositional attitudes. But this thesis is vulnerable to
counterexample from object-directed emotions including personal love
and hate, the objects of which seem not to be fully specifiable as
states of affairs or as propositions. Relatedly, though some
intentional pleasures are indeed propositional attitudes, it is a
significant further question whether they all are. A third
clarification is this. If there are intentional pleasures then they are
such that their objects might or might not exist. I could delight in
the concert performance of my favourite musician, for example, even if
the actual performer is instead just a talented imposter, or even if
the ‘performer’ is in fact just an audio-visual effect of
clever sound and light projection. Or, to update and to make concrete
an older and more abstract example from Chisholm (28–29), Gore might
for a time have enjoyed his victory in the 2000 U.S. presidential
election, even though he actually did not win it. These claims about
intentional pleasures are instances of the wider and admittedly rather
perplexing point that the objects of some intentional states and
properties do not exist (see entry on
Intentionality).

In various significant ways, issues concerning the phenomenal and
intentional nature of pleasure bear on hedonism about value. Such
matters are canvassed below.

Intentionalism about the mental is the thesis is that all mental
matters are intentional, that they all have directedness or
‘aboutness’ (e.g., Brentano 1874/1973, Crane). Pleasure is a
mental matter, so intentionalism about pleasure implies that any
pleasure is an intentional matter and thus has an object. Strong
intentionalism implies that phenomenal character is purely a matter of
intentional character, and this implies in turn that intentional
character exhausts phenomenal character. All intentionalist accounts of
pleasure are of course consistent with intentionalism about pleasure.
But intentionalism about pleasure is inconsistent with any radical
phenomenalist account that claims, of some or all pleasure, that it has
no intentional character. Moderate phenomenalist accounts instead claim
that all pleasure is both phenomenal and intentional; so they are
consistent with intentionalism, and some are also consistent with
strong intentionalism. Some phenomenalist accounts of pleasure are
neither radical nor moderate; but are instead indeterminate on the
matter of whether or not pleasure has any intentional character. Such
indeterminacy then carries through to any form of hedonism that is
built on them. Insofar as such indeterminacy is undesirable in any
account of pleasure, and in any hedonist thesis, it is a count against
these views.

Phenomenalism about pleasure is the thesis that all pleasure has
phenomenal character. Radical intentionalist accounts (e.g., Feldman
2004: 56, Shafer-Landau: 20) claim, of some or all pleasure, that it
has no phenomenal or felt character. Any such account is inconsistent
with phenomenalism about pleasure. Though Feldman and Shafer-Landau do
argue that intentional pleasure need not have any phenomenology or felt
character, they also argue, respectively, that there is a distinct
‘sensory’ or ‘physical’ sort of pleasure that
does have felt character. Moderate intentionalist accounts, by
contrast, claim that all pleasure is both phenomenal and intentional,
and this makes them consistent with phenomenalism about pleasure. Most
intentionalists are mindful that all pleasure has a phenomenal
reputation, and they attempt to account for this.

Moderate phenomenalism and moderate intentionalism can be re-framed
as hybrid accounts that build on the idea that pleasure has both
phenomenal and intentional character. A strong intentionalist hybrid
view (e.g., Crane: chs. 1, 3) is that pleasure is a property or state
the phenomenal character of which is fully captured in its intentional
character. On one account of this sort, the phenomenal property or
state of my delighting in the day just is my having a state or property
in the intentional mode of delight, with content that includes
directedness at the day. A different hybrid account is that pleasure is
an intentional state or property that also has a phenomenal
higher-order property. Along these lines, it might be held that delight
in the day is a state or property in the delight mode that is directed
at the day, and that in addition has a certain felt character. A third
hybrid account is that pleasure is an intentional state or property
that has a phenomenal object. Along these lines, my delighting in the
day might be taken to be my intrinsically desiring a certain day-caused
phenomenal delight-state or delight-property of mine. A fourth hybrid
account is that pleasure is a phenomenal state or property that in
addition meets an object-of-intentional-state condition. For example,
one might regard: “Pleasure… as a feeling which …
is at least implicitly apprehended as desirable…”
(Sidgwick: 127; see also Brandt, Sumner: 90). This fourth sort of
hybrid view is rather demanding, because any subject who lacks the
capacity ‘implicitly to apprehend as desirable’ is
incapable of such pleasure.

Ryle (1954) argued that all sensations have felt location. For
example, one feels the pain of toe-stubbing to be located in
one's toe. Ryle also argued that pleasure has no felt location,
and he concluded that it cannot be a sensation. Phenomenalists about
pleasure need not contest any of this. They need not think pleasure is
a sensory or a sensation state or property, and if they allow that
bodily phenomenal pain does have intentional character, they can
account for the felt location of one's pain of toe-stubbing in
terms of its being directed at one's toe. Much the same is true
of intentionalists. They can claim that pleasure is an intentional
state or property, without claiming that its intentional character
involves its having any felt location. For example, my delight in the
day is about the day, not about any bodily location of mine. Moderate
phenomenalism and moderate intentionalism are thus consistent with Ryle
on these points. Ryle's arguments do nevertheless present
challenges for some pleasure-pain symmetry theses.

It is plausible that at least some pleasures have directedness.
These pleasures present challenges for radical phenomenalists who deny
that any pleasure has any intentional character. They need not trouble
more modest forms of phenomenalism that do allow also for intentional
character.

One option is to claim that some pleasures do not have any
intentional character and are thus not directed at or about anything.
For example, it might be claimed that there is objectless euphoria and
ecstasy, or that undirected feelings of anxiety or suffering exist.
Such cases would be no trouble for the sorts of phenomenalism that
reject any form of intentionalism about pleasure. Intentionalists, by
contrast, must insist that every pleasure and displeasure has an
object. They might argue, for example, that allegedly objectless
euphoria and ecstasy or anxiety in fact do have objects, even if these
objects are not fully determinate; perhaps, for example, they are
directed at things in general, or one's life in
general. Intentionalists might add that the indeterminacy of these
objects is part of the charm of ‘objectless’ euphoria and
ecstasy, and of the awfulness of ‘objectless’ anxiety and
depression. In support of the broader idea that intentional states can
have vague or indeterminate objects, while ordinary or substantial
objects cannot, Elizabeth Anscombe offered this pugilist's
example: “I can think of a man without thinking of a man of any
particular height; I cannot hit a man without hitting a man of any
particular height, because there is no such thing as a man of no
particular height” (Anscombe: 161). A different response to the
claim that some pleasures and displeasures are objectless is to move to
a fundamentally pluralist view, according to which some pleasure and
displeasure is intentional, other pleasure and displeasure is
phenomenal, and some of the latter has no intentional character at
all.

Monism about pleasure is the thesis that there is just one basic
kind of mental state or property that is pleasure. Phenomenal monism
holds that there is just one basic kind pleasure feeling or tone, while
intentional monism claims there is just one basic kind of pleasure
intentional state or property. The disunity objection to monism is
based on the claim that there is no unified or common element in all
instances of pleasure (e.g., Sidgwick: 127, Alston: 344, Brandt: 35–42,
Parfit: 493, Griffin: 8, Sprigge: ch. 5). With few exceptions if any,
such objections have to date targeted phenomenal monism. But both the
objection and the possible replies to it are under-explored in the
different context of intentional monism. The standard phenomenal monist
reply is to insist that there is just one basic kind of
pleasure and that this is a matter of there being a common element in
pleasure's feeling, felt tone, or phenomenology, or in
‘what it is like’ to have pleasure (e.g., Moore: 12–13,
Broad: 229, Sumner: 87–91). Broad, for example, wrote that the common
phenomenal character of pleasure is something “we cannot define
but are perfectly acquainted with” (Broad: 229). Alternatively,
if some definition is to be attempted, one thought is that the common
phenomenal character of all pleasure is just its felt pleasantness. A
different claim is that there is a common feel-good character or felt
positivity in all pleasure. This claim is not clear, but can be spelt
out in at least the following three different ways: that there is such
a property as felt positivity and that all instances of pleasure have
it; that all pleasure consists partly in feeling the existence of
goodness or value; or that all pleasure has goodness or value as an
intentional object, and this is so whether or not goodness or value
exists.

Pluralism in the present setting is the thesis that there is more
than one basic kind of state or property that is pleasure, that
pleasure is multiply or variously or diversely realizable, or that
there is a basic plurality of sufficient conditions for pleasure. The
core idea is that there is a basic plurality of kinds of feel or of
intentional state, each of which is a kind of pleasure (e.g., Rachels,
Labukt, perhaps Rawls: 557). The unity objection to any such pluralism
is that all instances of pleasure must meet some unitary sufficient
condition, and that pluralism is inconsistent with this. The obvious
pluralist reply is to reject this demand for unitariness. One rationale
for this reply is that multiple or plural realization theses about many
kinds of mental states are coherent, widely made and merit serious
consideration, so the unity objector is not justified in thus seeking
to rule them out at the outset of inquiry into the nature of
pleasure.

Reflection on both the disunity objection to monism and the unity
objection to pluralism about pleasure suggests a further option. This
is the thesis that there is some feature that is phenomenal or
intentional or both and that is common to all instances of pleasure,
and that in addition, some pleasures differ from others in at least one
other respect that has phenomenal or intentional character or both. One
motivation for such views is to draw out and combine insights from both
monism and pluralism about the nature of pleasure.

Which features of pleasure are most closely related to its value?
Bentham claimed that there are at least six ‘dimensions of value
in a pleasure or a pain’: intensity, duration, certainty or
uncertainty, propinquity or remoteness, fecundity, and purity (Bentham:
ch. 4). On one account, fecundity is a matter of being instrumental in
other pleasure or pain, purity is a matter of separating pleasure out
from non-pleasure, propinquity and remoteness concern temporal and/or
spatial nearness or farness, and the essentials of certainty and
uncertainty are plain enough. Recalling that non-instrumental value is
the present point of focus, Bentham's account suggests the
quantitative hedonist idea that the non-instrumental value of pleasure
is a matter just of its quantitative features, and that these reduce
just to its duration and its intensity.

Quantitative hedonism is consistent with monist phenomenalism about
pleasure, with ‘intensity’ here understood as ‘felt
intensity’. It is also consistent with pluralist phenomenalism
about pleasure, but only on the assumption that none of the
plurality-making features of pleasure also adds non-instrumentally to
its value. It is less straightforward to see how to combine
quantitative hedonism with those forms of intentionalism that deny that
pleasure need have any phenomenal character. Such accounts would need
to explain the intensity or strength of pleasure in intentional terms
and without making any appeal to felt intensity.

Responding especially to the charge that a Benthamite account is a
‘doctrine worthy only of swine’, J.S. Mill (ch. 2)
developed an alternative approach according to which there is
‘higher’ and ‘lower’ pleasure, and its value is
irreducibly a matter of its quality as well as its quantity. Mill
argued that of two sorts of pleasures, if there is one that at least a
majority of those who have experience of both prefer then it is the
more desirable. The standard criticism of this qualitative hedonism is
that pleasure's quality reduces either to its quantity, or to
some anti-hedonist claim about value. The best sort of reply for
qualitative hedonists is to present an account that does not suffer
from either such reduction or such collapse. Pluralism about the nature
of pleasure seems to be necessary for this, together with the claim
that one or more of the plurality-constituting features of pleasure
does also add non-instrumentally add to its value. Qualitative
hedonists who are also phenomenalists about pleasure will seek to find
the sources of such value differences in phenomenal differences.
Qualitative hedonists who are also intentionalists about the nature of
pleasure will seek to find the sources of such value differences in
irreducibly non-quantitative differences amongst pleasures in the
intentional mode, in the intentional content, or in both of these
aspects of these mental states or properties. Feldman's
‘Truth-Adjusted Intrinsic Attitudinal Hedonism’ is a view
of this sort, due to its claim that the amount of intrinsic value of a
life is a matter of the truth-adjusted amount of its intrinsic
attitudinal pleasure (Feldman 2004: 112). The same is true of
Feldman's ‘Desert-Adjusted Intrinsic Attitudinal
Hedonism’, according to which the amount of intrinsic value of a
life is a matter of the desert-adjusted amount of its intrinsic
attitudinal pleasure (Feldman 2004: 121).

One significant objection to hedonism about value is based on claims
about the nature and existence of pleasure. It assumes hedonism about
value, conjoins this with the eliminativist thesis that there is no
such thing as pleasure, infers the nihilist thesis that nothing
actually has value, rebounds by rejecting this value nihilism, and then
concludes by retaining eliminativism about pleasure while rejecting
hedonism about value. The most radical forms of eliminativism about
pleasure are across-the-board theses: there is no such thing as
pleasure, or there is no such thing as pain (e.g., Dennett; criticized
by Flanagan amongst others), or both. Objections of the above sort that
are based on the most radical eliminativist thesis speak against all
forms of hedonism. Objections based on eliminativism about only
phenomenal pleasure, or about only intentional pleasure, or about only
sensational pleasure (e.g., Ryle, perhaps Sidgwick: 127, perhaps
Aristotle 1175a22f) speak against only the correspondingly narrower
forms of hedonism.

Why believe eliminativism about phenomenal or intentional pleasure?
One sort of argument for it moves from the premise that there is no
phenomenally or intentionally distinctive character common to all
instances of, for example, new romantic love, slaking a powerful
thirst, sexual orgasm, solving a hard intellectual problem, and
fireside reminiscence amongst friends, to the conclusion that there is
no such thing as phenomenal or intentional pleasure. This sort of
argument relies on monism about pleasure, and monism about pleasure is
argued above to be questionable. Why believe eliminativism about
sensational pleasure? One sort of argument for it is that any such
pleasure must be a sensation, and any sensation must have felt
location, but no pleasure has felt location, so no pleasure sensation
exists. Perhaps the most promising sort of hedonist response is to
argue against eliminativism about pleasure, or at least against
eliminativism about pleasure on some particular favoured account of its
nature.

This section has discussed the nature of pleasure as it bears on
ethical hedonism. It has outlined phenomenalist accounts,
intentionalist accounts and hybrid accounts of pleasure. It has
examined various critical issues for hedonism that are related to the
nature of pleasure, especially: quantitative versus qualitative
hedonism, disunity objections to monistic hedonism and unity objections
to pluralistic hedonism, and arguments from eliminativism about
pleasure to the rejection of hedonism about value. One overall
conclusion to draw from this sub-section is that there would be benefit
in further philosophical examination of the multiple connections
between ethical hedonism and the phenomenal and intentional character
of pleasure and displeasure.

At its simplest, ethical hedonism is the thesis that all and only
pleasure has positive non-instrumental importance and all and only pain
or displeasure has negative non-instrumental importance. The focus
below is on hedonism about value, and the discussion is intended to be
generalizable also to other forms of ethical hedonism.

Consider the following unification argument for hedonism about
value: the case for the value of pleasure is stronger than the case for
the value of any non-pleasure; the more unified the theory of value the
better it is; unification around the strongest case is better than
unification around any other case; therefore: hedonism is the best
theory of value. This argument has weaknesses. Its first premise is not
obviously true and needs further argument. In addition, the further
argument that it still needs is in effect a separate argument for
hedonism over its rivals, so this unification argument is not
self-standing. Its second premise is also ambiguous between the claim
that a theory of value is in one respect better if it is more unified,
and the claim that it is all-things-considered better if it is more
unified. Plausibility requires the first interpretation, but the
unification argument requires the second interpretation. In short,
there are significant problems with this unification argument for
ethical hedonism.

Here is a motivation argument for hedonism about value: one's
basic motivation is always and only pleasure; all and only that which
is one's basic motivation has value for one; therefore all and
only what is valuable for one is pleasure. On one interpretation, this
argument appeals to a form of the motivational hedonist thesis that the
only object of our basic motives is pleasure. This form of motivational
hedonism is questionable, as Section 1.2 discussed above. In addition,
motivational hedonism is most plausible as a claim about the role of
pleasure as an object of each of our motives, whether or not that
object actually exists in each case; whereas hedonism about value is
most plausible as a view just about real states or properties of
pleasure. Furthermore, this motivation argument depends on a
pro-attitude or motivation theory of value. It thus makes hedonism
about value an implication of, and in that respect dependent on, this
form of subjectivism about value. On an alternative interpretation of
the motivation argument, its first premise is the pleasure-motive
identity thesis that our motives just are our pleasures (see
Heathwood). For the motivation argument to bear fruit on this second
interpretation, its proponents need to show that this pleasure-motive
identity thesis is plausible.

One scientific naturalist argument for hedonism is this: in the
value domain we should be scientific naturalists in our methods of
inquiry; hedonism is the best option in respect of scientific
naturalism; therefore, we should be hedonists about value. Various
issues arise. Both premises of the argument need support. First, what
are scientific naturalist forms of inquiry into value, and why think
they should be adopted them in the value domain? One broadly scientific
rationale for adopting such methods is the claim that their empirical
track record is superior to that of philosophical theorising about
value. But the thesis that naturalistic methods have a superior
empirical track record or prospect is not obviously true and needs
argument. A case also needs to be made that hedonism does do better
than its rivals in the scientific naturalist respect. Why think it has
better naturalistic credentials, for example, than the numerous
non-hedonic and extra-hedonic mental states and properties, and the
various forms of agency and of personal relationship, that are amongst
the promising rival or additional candidates for non-instrumental value
status?

Consider now this doxastic or belief argument for hedonism about
value: all or most of us believe hedonism about value, albeit that some
of us suffer from self-deception about that; and this state of our
beliefs supports hedonism itself. One response is that even if the
premise is true it fails to support the conclusion. Consider
structurally similar cases. First, even if we all believe we have free
will and even if we cannot but believe this, it does not show that we
actually have free will. Second, suppose instead that a strong general
form of belief involuntarism is true, according to which we are not
free to have any beliefs other than those we do in fact have. Again,
this would not have any tendency to establish the truth of any of these
beliefs of ours, however robustly it might permit our having them. Any
convincing form of the doxastic or belief argument would need to
overcome such difficulties.

Phenomenal arguments for hedonism move from some aspect of the felt
character of pleasure or pain to a thesis about the value of pleasure
or pain.Some argue that pain or pleasure or both have felt character or
felt quality that generates reason to avoid or alleviate or minimize
the former and seek the latter (e.g., Nagel 1986: 156–162). It might be
thought that such phenomenal considerations can be deployed also in an
argument for some form of ethical hedonism. One overall point is that
the most such phenomenal arguments can show is the sufficiency of
pleasure for value, and/or of pain for disvalue. Even if the relevant
phenomenal character is unique to pleasure and pain, this can
establish at most that pleasure is necessary to phenomenal arguments
for value, and that pain is necessary to phenomenal arguments for
disvalue. It cannot show that pleasure and pain alone have
non-instrumental value. Phenomenal arguments also need to avoid appeal
to any equivocation on ‘quality’. From the mere fact that
pain or pleasure has a certain felt quality in the sense of ‘felt
character’, it does not immediately follow that it has any felt
quality in the sense of ‘value’ or
‘disvalue’.

Can phenomenal arguments be strengthened? First, one might conjoin
the premise that pleasure has certain felt character with the premise
that all or most of us believe this felt character to be good. But this
is just a doxastic argument again, plus a phenomenal account of the
nature of pleasure. Second, one might instead appeal to the epistemic
thesis that the felt character of pain and pleasure gives us direct
awareness, perception or apprehension of the badness of pain and the
goodness of pleasure. One construal of this idea is that pleasure is an
intentional feeling that has its own value or goodness as an object.
Even if this thesis is granted, however, it is a general feature of
intentional states that their objects might or might not exist. This
being so, even if its own goodness is an intentional object of pleasure
and its own badness is an intentional object of pain, it does not
follow that pleasure is good or that pain is bad. A third way to
interpret the phenomenal argument is as claiming that pleasure and pain
are propositional feels that have feels-to-be-good and feels-to-be-bad
intentional and phenomenal character, respectively. Again however, if
such feels share the character of propositional attitudes in general,
then ‘feels-to-be-good’ does not entail
‘is-good’ and ‘feels-to-be-bad’ does not entail
‘is-bad’.

Causal arguments for hedonism about value move from premises about
pleasure's causal relations to the conclusion that pleasure alone
is valuable. One thing to note about the particular causal arguments
for hedonism that are discussed below (c.f. Crisp 2006: 120–122) is
that they are in tension with doxastic arguments for hedonism (and with
epistemic arguments, on which see below), because they counsel caution
or even skepticism about the epistemic credentials of our
hedonism-related beliefs.

One causal argument for hedonism is that autonomy, achievement,
friendship, honesty, and so on, generally produce pleasure, and this
makes us tend to think they have value of their own; in this way the
valuable pleasure produced by these non-pleasures tends to confound our
thinking about what has value. Even granting that achievement,
friendship and the like tend to cause pleasure, however, why think this
merely instrumental consideration also causes us to think these
non-hedonic matters have their own non-instrumental value? Is there,
for instance, any empirical evidence for this claim? And even granted
both causal claims, why think these are the only causes of belief in
non-hedonism? Even granted that these are the only causes of
non-hedonist belief, why think these causes of belief justify it, and
why think they are its only justifiers? Perhaps these questions all
have good hedonism-friendly answers, but that needs to be shown.
Alternatively, perhaps this causal argument is instead exactly as good
as the parallel causal argument from the thesis that pleasure generally
produces autonomy, achievement, and the like, to the opposite
conclusion that hedonism is false.

Another causal argument for hedonism is that anti-hedonism about
value is pleasure-maximizing; this tends to cause anti-hedonist belief;
and it also justifies our having anti-hedonist belief without our
needing to think such belief true. As it stands, this argument is weak.
The issue is whether anti-hedonism is true, and this causal argument
fails even to address that issue. Even if anti-hedonist belief has good
or ideal consequences, and even if such consequences tend to produce
such belief, this does not tend to establish either the truth or the
falsehood of anti-hedonism.

Explanatory arguments for hedonism about value invite us to make a
list of the things that we regard as good or valuable, to ask of each
of them ‘why is it good?’ or ‘what explains its being
good?’, to agree that all of the goodness or value of all but one
such listed item is best explained by its generation of pleasure, and
also to agree that no satisfactorily explanatory answer can be given to
such questions as ‘why is pleasure good?’ or ‘what
explains pleasure's being good?’. Proponents of the
explanatory argument then conclude in favour of hedonism about
value.

Those already sympathetic to hedonism about value should find
explanatory arguments congenial. It is a good question, partly
empirical in nature, how the explanatory argument will strike those not
already inclined either for or against hedonism about value. Those
already sympathetic to non-hedonist pluralism about value, however, can
reasonably respond with some scepticism to explanatory arguments for
hedonism. They can hold that the non-instrumental value of each of
pleasure, knowledge, autonomy, friendship and achievement (or any other
good proposed instead) is best explained by its own non-instrumental
features. Subjectivists will add that these non-instrumental features
are matters of each item's being some object of some actual or
counterfactual pro-stance. Objectivists will instead claim that the
non-instrumental features of pleasure, achievement, friendship,
knowledge and autonomy that explain its value are independent of its
being any object of any pro-stance. All parties can also agree that at
least part of the instrumental goodness or value of pleasure,
knowledge, autonomy, friendship and achievement is best explained by
its generation of pleasure.

Epistemic arguments for hedonism about value claim that pleasure
clearly or obviously has value (c.f. Crisp 2006: 124), and that nothing
else clearly does; and they conclude that this justifies belief in
hedonism about value. But the assertion that pleasure's value
claims are clearer or more robust or more obvious than those of any
other candidate for value status needs argument. Until this is
supplied, perhaps by doxastic, phenomenal, explanatory, or causal
arguments, epistemic arguments add little to the case for hedonism
about value.

This sub-section has outlined and reviewed some of the main forms of
argument for hedonism about value: unification, motivation, scientific
naturalist, doxastic, phenomenal, explanatory, causal and epistemic
arguments. Arguments of each of these sorts could also be made for
other forms of ethical hedonism. Each argument is problematical, but
perhaps one or more of them can be made robust. Perhaps other promising
arguments for ethical hedonism might also be developed. Even if all
such arguments fail, this would still not in itself be a convincing
overall case against hedonism. The next sub-section examines arguments
against ethical hedonism.

There are many and varied arguments against ethical hedonism. Those
that appeal to claims about the nature of pleasure are canvassed in
Section 2.1 above. Further arguments against ethical hedonism could be
constructed that broadly parallel the unification, motivation,
scientific naturalist, doxastic, phenomenal, explanatory, causal and
epistemic arguments for ethical hedonism presented and examined in
Section 2.2 above. That task is not pursued in this entry. The
following sub-sections instead review other objections to ethical
hedonism.

2.3.1 Non-Necessity Objections

At its simplest, ethical hedonism is the thesis that all and only
pleasure is good non-instrumentally, and all and only pain or
displeasure is bad non-instrumentally. The non-necessity objection to
this rejects its claim that only pleasure is good, or its claim that
only displeasure is bad, or both of these claims. Its thesis is that
pleasure is not necessary for positive importance, or that displeasure
is not necessary for negative importance, or both. Its basic idea is
that something other than pleasure has value, and/or that something
other than displeasure has disvalue. Any cases that are hedonic equals
but value unequals would deliver what the non-necessity objector
seeks.

One expression of the non-necessity objection is the following
articulated ‘incredulous stare’ (after Lewis 1986). Why
would anyone think, even for a minute, that hedonism is a plausible
theory of value? Even if we focus very narrowly, just on those mental
states of ours that arguably are instances of pleasure or have pleasure
as a higher-order property – contentment, delight, ecstasy,
elation, enjoyment, euphoria, exhilaration, exultation, gladness,
gratification, gratitude, joy, liking, love, relief, satisfaction,
Schadenfreude, tranquility, and so on – each of these mental
states or events or properties also has one or more non-hedonic
properties that contribute to its importance. Beyond pleasure, our
mental lives are full of significant and diverse thoughts, perceptions,
emotions, imaginings, wishes, and so on. These engage with massively
plural and diverse items in ourselves, in others, in myriad aspects of
the non-human world, and in the infinities of contingent future
possibility. This is true also of our relationships with ourselves and
with others, and with multiple aspects of the wider world. It is true
also of our agency – our deliberations, choices, plans,
intentions, and so forth. In the light of such reflections, an
incredulous stare might be thought an apt response to a profession of
belief in ethical hedonism. This incredulous stare argument is far from
decisive, but perhaps it should disrupt any complacent presumption in
favour of hedonism.

Many well-known criticisms of hedonism can reasonably be interpreted
as non-necessity objections. A short survey of some of the more
significant of these follows.

Plato pointed out that if your life is just one of pleasure then it
would not even include any recollection of pleasure; nor any distinct
thought that you were pleased, even when you were pleased. His
conclusion was that “your life would be the life, not of a man,
but of an oyster” (Philebus 21a). Similarly, on J.S.
Mill's account of him at least (Mill: ch. 2), Carlyle held that
hedonism is a “doctrine worthy only of swine”.

Nozick (1971) and Nagel (1970) present schematic descriptions of
lives that have all the appearance but none of the reality of
self-understanding, achievement, loving relationships,
self-directedness, and so on, alongside lives that have these
appearances and also the corresponding realities. On the face of it,
hedonism is committed to the hedonic equality and thus the equal value
of these lives. Commenting on his more fantastical and more famous
‘experience machine’ case, Nozick added further detail,
claiming that it is also good in itself “to do certain things,
and not just have the experience [as if] of doing them”,
“to be a certain way, to be a certain sort of person” and
not just to be an “indeterminate blob” floating in a tank,
and “to make a difference in the world” rather than merely
to appear to oneself to do so. He concluded: “something matters
to us in addition to experience” (Nozick 1974: 43–44).

Consider further the idea that actually having certain relationships
with oneself (e.g., relations of self-understanding) and with others
(e.g., mutual relations of interpersonal love) matters, in addition to
the value of any experience one has that is just as if one has such
relationships. The thought here is that the motto ‘also
connect’ expresses something important, even if novelist E.M.
Forster's more ambitious ‘only connect’ (Forster: ch.
33) was an exaggeration.

In a famous case description, Moore argued that a world with beauty
but without its contemplation, and indeed without any mental states
whatever, is better than a world that is “simply one heap of
filth” (Moore: sec. 50; contrast Sidgwick: 114). If Moore is
right about this ‘beauty and the filth’ case, then pleasure
is not necessary for value.

W.D. Ross (138) considered two worlds that are equals both
hedonically and in character terms. In one world, the virtuous have the
pleasure and the vicious have the pain, while in the other the vicious
have the pleasure and the virtuous have the pain. To help secure across
all plausible accounts of the nature of pleasure the ‘equality of
pleasure’ that is central to this case comparison, suppose that
in each world the same pleasures are taken in the same objects.
Pleasure is equal across these two worlds, but Ross argues that the
well-matched world is better than the mis-matched world. If he is
right, then this is a case of ‘same pleasure, different
value’, and thereby also a case in which difference of pleasure
is not necessary for difference of value.

Imagining oneself to have a hedonically perfect life, a
non-necessity objector is apt to respond along the lines of the popular
Paul Jabara / Jo Asher song: ‘Something's missing in my
life’. One way to fill out the detail is with some variant of
that song's second premise: ‘Baby it's you’.
The objectors' claim is that there is something that is
sufficient for value and that is missing from the life of perfect
pleasure. If the objection stands then pleasure is not necessary for
value.

There is a range of possible hedonist responses to non-necessity
objections. One reply is that the allegedly non-hedonic item on which
the objector focuses just is an instance of pleasure, so its
being valuable is just what a hedonist would expect. A related reply is
that the item to which the objector points is sufficient for value only
insofar as it is an instance of pleasure, so the thesis that pleasure
is necessary for value again remains unscathed. Responses of these
sorts are relatively easy for hedonists to make; but it is less easy to
show anyone who is not already a hedonist that these replies provide
grounds for taking the hedonist side of the arguments. A third reply
hedonists might make to non-necessity objections is to allow that the
item in question is or includes non-pleasure that has value, but then
to argue that this is merely instrumental value. A fourth and more
concessive reply is that the item in question might be a non-pleasure
and might be sufficient for non-instrumental value of some sort (e.g.,
moral value), but to add that there is also at least one sort of value
(e.g., prudential value) for which pleasure is necessary. For example,
it might be claimed that self-sacrifice that protects the non-sentient
environment has non-hedonic moral value but lacks prudential value for
the agent. An option that is yet more concessive is for hedonists is to
agree that pleasure is not necessary for value or that displeasure is
not necessary for disvalue or both of these things, but to continue to
insist that pleasure is sufficient for value or that displeasure is
sufficient for disvalue or both of these things.

2.3.2 Insufficiency Objections

As noted above, the simplest form of ethical hedonism is the claim
that all and only pleasure is good non-instrumentally and all and only
pain or displeasure is bad non-instrumentally. The insufficiency
objection rejects the ethical hedonist claim that all pleasure is good,
or that all displeasure is bad, or both claims. Its contrary thesis is
that pleasure is insufficient for good, and/or that displeasure is
insufficient for bad; some pleasure has no value, and/or some
displeasure has no disvalue. Any pair of cases that are value equals
but hedonic unequals would deliver what the insufficiency objector
seeks.

Various insufficiency objections are outlined below. Each aims to
show that some pleasure is worthless or worse and is thus insufficient
for good or value. Some focus on the bad as cause of pleasure, others
on the bad as object of pleasure. A third possible focus is on pleasure
understood as a property of something bad such as a sadistic thought or
act, rather than as an effect of something bad.

Aristotle (Book x, ch. 3) argued that some pleasure is disgraceful
or base. Brentano (1889/1969: 90) argued that “pleasure in the
bad” both lacks value and has disvalue. Moore (sec. 56) expressed
similar thoughts in a bracingly concrete manner by imagining the
pleasures of “perpetual indulgence in bestiality” and
claiming them to be not good but bad. Self-destructive or masochistic
pleasure, pleasure with a non-existent or false object, and
contra-deserved pleasure are some other targets of insufficiency
objections to hedonism about value.

Hedonists can respond in various ways to insufficiency objections.
These are canvassed below.

One sort of hedonist response to an insufficiency objection is to
accept that the objector's case is an instance of pleasure, but
then to claim that it is sufficient for value. This response
is underpinned by insistence on the wider thought that any pleasure is
sufficient for value. Consistent with this, but rather concessively, it
could also be claimed that pleasure is sufficient for only very little
value, and that substantial or major value is present only if further
conditions are met. Such further conditions might concern the extent to
which the pleasure is ‘higher’ rather than
‘lower’, whether its object exists, or whether its object
merits pleasure. Feldman (2004) has formulated and sympathetically
examined several views that have this sort of structure, including
Altitude-Adjusted, Truth-Adjusted, and Desert-Adjusted forms of
Intrinsic Attitudinal Hedonism.

A second hedonist response is to accept that the insufficiency
objector has indeed found a case that is insufficient for value, but
then to claim that it is not an instance of pleasure. This
sort of response is underpinned by the hedonist's insistence on
the wider thought that anything insufficient for value is not
pleasure.

A third hedonist response is somewhat concessive. It distinguishes
at least two basic kinds of value, and continues to insist that
pleasure is sufficient for one of these, while also accepting the
objector's thesis that there is at least one other sort of value
for which pleasure is not sufficient. One instance of this response is
the claim that sadistic pleasure adds prudential value for the sadist
but also lacks moral value and indeed has moral disvalue. But such a
move is more awkward in other cases, including those of pleasure that
is self-destructive or masochistic.

A fourth hedonist response is concessive. It abandons altogether the
thesis that pleasure is sufficient for value, while also continuing to
insist that pleasure is necessary for value. Consistent with this
response, one could claim that pleasure is conditionally valuable; that
is, sufficient for value when and only when certain further conditions
are met. These conditions could be specified either negatively (e.g.,
pleasure is valuable only when it does not arise from and is not
directed at a bad deed or character state or state of affairs), or
positively (e.g., pleasure is valuable only when its object exists, or
only when its object is deserving of it). Modified forms of
Altitude-Adjusted, Truth-Adjusted, and Desert-Adjusted Intrinsic
Attitudinal Hedonism would have this structure (see Feldman 2004).

The critical discussion of Section 2 above has supplemented the
Section 1 consideration of psychological hedonism, by examining
arguments both for and against ethical hedonism. On one influential
view that John Rawls attributes to Henry Sidgwick, justification in
ethics ideally proceeds against “standards of reasoned
justification… carefully formulated”, and
“satisfactory justification of any particular moral conception
must proceed from a full knowledge and systematic comparison of the
more significant conceptions in the philosophical tradition”
(editor's ‘Foreword’ to Sidgwick). This entry has not
attempted any such systematic comparative examination of psychological
hedonism or ethical hedonism against its main rivals.

Both psychological hedonism and ethical hedonism remain worthy of
serious philosophical attention. Each also has broader philosophical
significance, especially but not only in utilitarian and egoist
traditions of ethical thought, and in empiricist and scientific
naturalist philosophical traditions.

The SEP would like to congratulate the National Endowment for the Humanities on its 50th anniversary and express our indebtedness for the five generous grants it awarded our project from 1997 to 2007.
Readers who have benefited from the SEP are encouraged to examine the NEH’s anniversary page and, if inspired to do so, send a testimonial to neh50@neh.gov.